


Civilian

by chararii



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Haruno Sakura, Family Reunions, Family Secrets, Gen, Haruno Sakura-centric, sneks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:33:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25363912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chararii/pseuds/chararii
Summary: Her mother's hair is pink. Her father is an unknown. Suddenly, the future isn't what it used to be.
Comments: 18
Kudos: 446
Collections: Konoha Collection, Real Good Shit, Team 7 🌀, why im sleep deprived 💖✨





	Civilian

**Author's Note:**

> One day I will stop coming up with Sakura-centric AU oneshots. Today is not the day.

Sakura never met her father. He's an idea, a concept, a removed yet unrealistic probability. She knows she has one. Everyone does! Some are dead, some alive, some abusive, some the greatest people in the world according to her class mates. Some are absent. Hers is one of them.  
It doesn't bother her much because she has her mother and she's the bestest mother of them all. She knows all the best recipes, shows Sakura all the hidden spots in the forests and always helps her with her academy assignments. With her mother, she doesn't need anyone else and they do just fine.   
Sometimes there's an older man visiting their apartment and whenever he does, Sakura has to go hide inside her room. He's not her father, her mother tells her the first time he appears in the dead of the night. He's a scary man, Sakura thinks and when she eavesdrops, learns that they always talk about her.  
He's curious about her progress, wants to know what Sakura can do, inspects her written exams and takes note of her grades. He's too interested in her, Sakura thinks. But she's just a kid. Six, almost seven years old. Mother always tells her not to trust strange men but it seems like she doesn't take her own lesson to heart. The man keeps coming by. Mother keeps telling him everything she knows about Sakura. Sakura keeps eavesdropping.

It's family day at the academy and Sakura's not the only one who arrives with a single parent. Ino-chan is there who is her bestest friend in the entire world and she's missing a mother. Together they decided ages ago that their parents are going to marry so they can be real sisters. It hasn't quite worked out yet but one day it will, Sakura is sure of it.

Until her mother gets robbed and stabbed on the way home from grocery shopping. Life is different after that.

The orphanage is no welcoming place for children like her with pink hair and wide eyes. She gets picked on a lot and cries every day. Sakura doesn't go back to the academy.

  
In the grand scheme of things, something shifts and with a loud click, one door closes while another one opens wide.

Years pass and Sakura grows older. She's thin because food is hard to come by but still pretty enough to hold the attention of a recent academy graduate with the worst haircut she has ever seen. Thinking that she really can't afford to be picky, Sakura smiles at him and vows that if nobody better has come along by the time she's sixteen, she will marry him. Shinobi lead dangerous lives and often don't get to settle down. Her mother was a civilian who didn't get to settle down either.

For the first time in forever, Sakura thinks about her father and wonders if things could have been different.

When she's twelve, the orphanage throws her out. She's old enough to take care of herself, they say and leave her with nothing but a ratty blanket and a few hundred ryo. She spends the first night in the academy yard until a silver-haired shinobi spots and chases her off.  
In a move Sakura is not proud of, she cuts herself with a shard of glass so she can stay in the hospital over night. There's a warm bed, food, and kind nurses. One in particular, a male nurse only a few years older than herself, smiles at her more often than the others and even sneaks her extra dessert upon noticing how thin she is.

The nurse says he's a medic-nin, a ninja doctor, and that his name is Kabuto. Sakura wants to see him again.

And she does. Kabuto is busy but he finds her often enough, here and there, in the forests or between market stalls. Sakura lives and survives through one miracle after another. Whenever they meet, he brings her food. Once a day at first, then twice, soon three hot meals whenever he can spare the time. Kabuto is her first real friend since Ino and Sakura wonders if this is what it's like to have an older brother.  
Nobody misses her so when she suddenly disappears from the streets, nobody notices. Except Kabuto.

It's the man that used to visit her family. For the first time in her life, Sakura can clearly see his bandaged face, the cane with which he walks and the wrapped arm he always holds close to his chest. They're alone in a cold room without windows and only a single door. Sakura is not restrained. They both know she couldn't run, even if given half a chance. She's a civilian. She's helpless. Just like her mother was.

The man hurts her and asks her questions.

“Where is your father?” He repeats those words again and again, sometimes with a smile, sometimes with a snarl. She begs, cries, promises, swear. She doesn't know him. Never met him. Never will.

Only once, Sakura asks if the man knows who her father is. He doesn't answer, leaves and never comes back. The next time the door to her prison opens, it's Kabuto on the other side. He frees her and she's so relieved that she doesn't smell the blood on him.

“You should consider working at the hospital,” he tells her one day and Sakura frowns at him. She has little to no education, no training in anything, let alone medicine. She's still a kid that survives off of what little she finds and two jobs as civilian mail runner. It's enough for a tiny cramped apartment with a single bed, toilet and tiny kitchen that's cramped into a corner. Kabuto knows this. So why does he mention the hospital?

“I think you'd pick it up quite easily. There's a shortage in capable nurses at the moment. They'd be glad to have you.” Sakura wants to snort and tell him he's ridiculous.

Despite that, on the next morning, Sakura finds herself wandering inside the white building anyway.

Kabuto didn't lie. The receptionist is overjoyed to the point where she ignores Sakura's filthy clothes and general state of dress. She quickly calls for a woman named Shizune-sama who takes a single look at her and frowns.

The older woman ushers her into the staff showers, then hands her a simple nurse outfit with a tag attached to the front that proclaims her as trainee. Afterwards, they relocate to her office where Shizune-sama places contract after contract in front of Sakura who makes sure to read them all, fine print and everything. She misses the way Shizune-sama closely watches her and the speed with which she her eyes glide across the paper.

“You will need to go through a standard checkup and then... Kabuto-san recommended you. If you want to, you can start training under him right away.”

Sakura's eyes widen and, for the first time in her life, she sees the light at the end of the corridor. She gives a single nod. Hours later, she's officially registered as nurse in training.

Sakura doesn't worry when Kabuto fails to show up for their daily lunch break. When he also doesn't meet with her for their secret training sessions, she knows something is wrong. A few days later there's a note on her nightstand.

' _He will come for you._ '

Sakura looks at the paper, then grabs it and crumbles it in her fist. Kabuto is not coming back.

She does her work well and diligently. The other nurses love her and there's always a bit of a scuffle among the med-nin when Shizune-sama distributes the rotation schedules for the week. Sakura gets passed around like she's hot commodity and it feels nice to be appreciated.  
Unfortunately, it also puts her in the spotlight which nets her the attention of people she'd really rather avoid. Kabuto, before he disappeared, had warned her to never tell anyone about the full extent of her abilities. He trained her in secret to make sure she can fend for herself but at the end of the day, Sakura is still a civilian.

“You're pretty good,” the blonde Hokage, Tsunade-hime, tells her one day when she unexpectedly wanders into the same lab that Sakura currently runs samples in.

“Thank you, Hokage-sama.” She's polite and avoids the older woman's eyes, which in turn, analyse her every movement.

“Civilian, right?” she asks and Sakura nods. It's the truth after all.

“You seem smart. Probably hide some decent chakra control in that tiny body of yours. Ever thought of going through remedial training?” Remedial training is a polite term for cannon fodder. Konoha is not as nice to its civilians as the rest of the world likes to think. Sakura smiles, shakes her head and says:  
“No thank you, Hokage-sama. I'm just a civilian.” Just a civilian. Nothing more, nothing less. Her lack of enthusiasm quickly makes the blonde legendary woman tire of her and eventually, she leaves Sakura to her own devices once again.

She runs another sample and smiles once more, smaller this time, a private little thing just for herself. Just a civilian. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Peace doesn't last. It's a three way war and Konoha their battlefield. Sakura sees fire, death and the terrible, terrible things ninja can do with their hands and chakra. Some of which she can do herself. Some of the monsters with scratched headbands try to overrun the hospital but Shizune-sama is there and so are the shadow men with masks hiding their faces.

Sakura is there too and she calls upon the vast power hiding in her stomach that she never learned how to make proper use of until Kabuto showed her how. She imagines her hands to be sharp and cutting, wields her bright blue energy blades like the deadly instruments they are. Shizune-sama's eyes widen at the sight but she's too busy defending the doors against their enemies.

Eventually, one of the med-nin tries to remove her from the frontlines but the black-haired female quickly puts a stop to that. They need her, she claims just as Sakura picks up a kunai from the ground and lodges it in someone's neck. A civilian nurse, and she gets more blood on her hands than anyone else that day.

“Who trained you?” She's in Tsunade-sama's office and the woman isn't happy. Their village is in shambles, the army of a man clad in red and black vanquished while some of the snake man's monsters still hide in the shadows.

Sakura, who is far from stupid or naïve, has noticed the odd times that Kabuto sometimes disappeared without a trace, the way he never seemed all that fond of Konoha, the tiny snakes hidden in the grass he occasionally spoke to. He's not here right now and that's just telling enough. He left months before the attack. Sakura's a civilian but she's not an idiot.

“I studied under Kabuto-san. I watched him. I went to the academy for a short time, as a child. I was curious if I could use my chakra.” It's not the truth but not exactly a lie either. If Kabuto taught her one thing above all else, it's how to walk that narrow line.

“Can you mould medical chakra?” Instead of an answer, Sakura raises her hand and watches as the eerie green light illuminates the darkness of the blonde woman's office. The latter scrutinises her heavily, no doubt recalling the only conversation they ever had, and doesn't seem all that happy.

“It's impossible to pick up such refined techniques as an adult.” She's sixteen, not quite an adult, though countless lessons on the development of chakra in childhood taught her enough to know that her age is not a valid argument. Sakura, just like everyone else in this room, knows that for all intents and purposes, she never should have been able to learn what she did. Not if she's the civilian she claims to be.

“Who's your father, girl?” the Hokage asks and even if she could, she doubts she would answer her. Kabuto had always known who her father was. He never shared the secret with Sakura who cared less and less as the years went by. The way she looks at the older woman must have rattled her memory because suddenly, she stops.

“She's quite pale. Does she suffer from anaemia?” The question is directed at Shizune-sama so Sakura stays silent.

“No, Tsunade-sama. She's perfectly healthy, a mild case of undernourishment during her early years aside. She's never been sick.” Honey eyes sharpen and narrow as the blonde woman connects dots Sakura cannot see.

“Is that so,” she mumbles and after a few more minutes of intense observation, dismisses her.

There's a snake following her. It's tiny, still a baby, and shimmers in countless shades of green, a pale and pastel set of scales. Sakura finds it in the pockets of her coat one day after getting changed in the hospital's dressing room. She's curious, as opposed to scared. Kabuto's constant dealings with the creatures desensitised her to them.

The thing is everywhere. It shows up in her apartment when she makes dinner, so she leaves it a mouse. It keeps watch over Sakura when she works and continues to hide in the pocket of her medic coat. It skulks in her basket when she goes to shop for groceries.

One day, after a shower, still damp and exhausted from a long day at the hospital, Sakura kneels down on the white tiles of her bathroom and looks into its beady black eyes.

“I'm Sakura,” she says and watches the reptile bob its head in understanding before it begins to hiss:

“Mussssume.”

She blinks at it, then extends her hand. It slithers into her warm palm, curls up and settles down to sleep.

It seems as if Kabuto hasn't lied to her after all.

Shinobi are wary of her. The attacks on their village grow in frequency and there's a secret people know but Sakura doesn't. Some don't want to be treated by her which doesn't shake her much. Being a fully-fledged med-nin is nice and all, the promotion a result of the Hokage's insistence she take the exams, but there's more to life than just mending broken bones and healing combat wounds.

She can do more than that, and the little snake is only too happy to teach her. Sakura studies a little bit of everything, creates fire and water from nothing, can shake the earth, call lightning from the skies and command the air. None of it is particularly impressive but it's a start.

She's a civilian and she can control the elements and force them to do her bidding better than most.

When Sakura is seventeen, the Hokage calls her into her office and behind closed doors and shut blinds, tells her who her father is.

She pretends to be surprised when she's really not. The little snake told her months ago.

Once more, there's an army on their doorstep, lead by a man with silver hair and dark eyes Sakura hasn't seen in a long time. He makes his final stand and when Shizune-sama cuts him down once and for all, the war is over.

“Father,” she says as the tall willowy figure steps out of the shadows, wispy white robe fluttering around his ankles. He looks down on her, gazes upon the shape of her mouth, slant of her eyes, curve of her jaw, all of which mirror his.

“Daughter.” Eerie golden eyes meet cold jade ones as a ghostly pale hand comes to a rest upon narrow shoulders to guide her away from the ruins, Kabuto's buried corpse and the village that's never been much of a home.

She doesn't know where they're going but Sakura never met her father.

Until one day, she did.

(She's never been a civilian.)

**Author's Note:**

> Sakura getting the snek family she always deserved.
> 
> (All hail baby snek!Sakura)
> 
> Also, 'musume' is Japanese for daughter.


End file.
